The Beginning of Addiction?
by C.J. Corrigan
Summary: Hamish Watson-Holmes faces peer pressure over drugs for the first time in an unlikely place, and John is there to see it. A short parent!lock ficlet.


**Okay, I'm taking my first stab at Parent!lock so bear with me here.**

I randomly had a dream about Hamish and John last night, and it was so vivid that I decided to write it down, and here it is. This is what happens when John's mum comes to visit her son and grandson, who is at this point in her middle-teen years. Also, for this story, I've made up a drug called "Yazmeen" which is a potent vitamin supplement meant only for people who seriously need the vitamins because it works so well.

John was at the end of his rope. One could never know what to expect around his mother, and that was why he'd limited her time around Hamish, both for his son's sanity and for his own. He loved his mother dearly, and was happy that she was enthusiastic about keeping herself healthy, but not when it meant that she thought she knew better than doctors like himself. He appreciated it even less, when it meant that she had decided to dictate other people's, namely Hamish's, health as well.

"And you should take iron and perhaps so food supplements. I worry about you Hamish, you're too lanky and pale like your dad. Is that what you call him? Dad?" She babbled.

"Father," Hamish corrected quietly, squeezing his teacup to hold in a snarky reply that he knew wouldn't be allowed.

"Father, then. You need to bulk up a little and get some color in those cheeks. And lastly, you should take one of these a day," she pulled out a bottle of pink capsules.

"Yazmeen?" John interrupted, picking up the bottle. "Mother, I don't think that's such a good idea. Hamish is perfectly healthy, and he's only fourteen. He doesn't need supplements, especially not _Yazmeen,_ for God's sake."

She snatched the container back. "Oh, come on, John. They're natural medicine. It's not like I'm giving him synthetic drugs." She opened the bottle and poured one of the oversized capsuled into the cap before handing it to Hamish. "Go on."

Hamish felt like a deer in headlights as he looked from his grandmother's encouraging looks to his dad's helpless, begging gaze. Locking eyes with John, he brought the bottle cap to his mouth, tipped his head back, and the pill slid into his mouth before he swallowed hard. He looked back at his grandmother and opened his mouth to her to demonstrate that he'd swallowed it.

She smiled in approval and John felt himself crumble inside. This was what it was coming to. He couldn't convince his own son that it was okay to turn down drugs that were unnecessary to your health. Soon enough it'd be Hamish covered with nicotine patches.

A small beeping noise came from his mother's watch and she stood to leave. "I have to run, I have a chiropractic appointment soon. Hamish, you can keep those, and remember what I said: one of those everyday."

John sank onto the couch so he didn't see her leave, but heard Hamish get up and embrace her before she went, the pills in his hand clacking against each other and the walls of their container.

As the door swung shut and Hamish's footsteps grew closer, John sighed into his hands. Hamish tapped lightly on his shoulder and he looked up to see a half-dissolved pink capsule in his son's open hand.

Hamish spoke grimly, "I didn't take it. I'm not going to start taking drugs I don't need. You don't have to worry about it."

"How?" John asked. "You swallowed it."

"You don't grow up with Father for a father without learning some questionable abilities. Among them, tonguing pills," Hamish answered, with a small smile appearing on his face.

At that moment Sherlock entered the flat with arms full of groceries. "I guess I came just in time to miss your mother, John. Lucky me." He paused at their table to pick up the pill container and read the label before looking at his son. "She gave you these?"

"I tongued it like you taught me."

"Good boy." With that, Sherlock walked to the kitchen with the groceries and the bottle mad a resounding _thunk!_ as they hit the bottom of the metal trash-bin.

"Sherlock, when did you teach our son to tongue his medicine," John asked incredulously.

Sherlock paused to think about it, counting backwards in his head. "He was probably four."

"And why did you teach him to do that?"

"Did you never taste the vitamins you were giving him? What kinds of grapes were you eating, John? Because I can tell you, normal grapes don't taste anything like that."


End file.
